Asked yesterday at game show E3 what gamers should do if they want an Xbox One but don't have reliable Internet access, Xbox frontman Don Mattrick said, "Fortunately we have a product for people who aren't able to get some form of connectivity: it's called Xbox 360."

Everyone loves seeing someone arrogant take a tumble, but there comes a point when you just start to feel sorry for them. Microsoft has crashed through that point, covering itself in broken glass, watermelons and chicken feathers on the way.

It's not that an online requirement will necessarily be a problem to many people -- it's that the reasoning behind it is transparently false. It's not about improving your experience, it's about controlling and restricting it. And if you don't like it? Buy our 8-year-old console! Again!

Compare Mattrick's tin-eared gaffe with Sony's Adam Boyes, its head of publisher and developer relations, who took to Twitter after the PlayStation 4 launch yesterday morning to thank a fan who started the #PS4NoDRM campaign on the social network. Boyes implied that the campaign helped shape Sony's no-Internet-required approach.

"Thank you @ForYourPeteDodd for helping echo gamers' messages through all levels of PlayStation," Boyes tweeted, adding "it really moved the needle -- I know it's hard to believe, but it did".

Sony was widely praised yesterday for its gamers-before-publishers strategy, with the PS4 eschewing the Xbox One's restrictions on sharing and trading games. It didn't hurt that it's £80 cheaper than Microsoft's machine either.